MEPs in bid to stop Pöttering’s ‘coronation’

Two of the European Parliament’s leading Eurosceptic MEPs will launch a campaign next week against confirming German centre-right deputy Hans-Gert Pöttering as Parliament’s president next January.

Jens-Peter Bonde, joint leader of the Independence and Democracy group, and Daniel Hannan, a UK Conservative, will announce the ‘Fair Chair’ campaign during the plenary session in Strasbourg next Tuesday (14 November) in a bid to win support from MEPs across all political groups to put up a credible candidate against Pöttering.

The main focus of the campaign is opposing the deal struck between the two biggest groups, the European People’s Party - European Democrats (EPP-ED) and the Socialists (PES) in 2004 to split the president’s five-year term between candidates from each group.

The Fair Chair MEPs want an end to the "coronation" of Parliament presidents, saying the Parliament "deserves better than presidents who are obliged to serve the structures that appointed them". MEPs should have an election system where the "best qualified for a post has a fair chance to be elected", the campaigners say, with qualified candidates being nominated for a "genuine debate" and "real elections campaigns" to be held before the vote on the second president in January 2007.

The campaigners also want an end to the D’Hondt system of allocating posts within the Parliament based on each delegation’s share of seats, saying it discriminates against smaller national delegations. MEPs from smaller member states rarely get the chance to join committees they are interested in or draft reports on subjects they like.

Parliament sources say they expect to win support from MEPs from most groups including some pro-reform Socialists and some members of the far-left GUE/NGL.

But the campaign is struggling to find a candidate who will stand against Pöttering. If no contender emerges, it is expected that Bonde himself may have to stand against the German EPP-ED leader in January.

The campaign also wants an end to the Parliament meeting in Strasbourg, better preparation of votes and more ‘catch-the-eye’ debates, where members can speak in a more spontaneous fashion, as opposed to obeying speaker lists prepared in advance by political groups.

Next week Pöttering will meet MEPs from the Alliance of Democrats and Liberals for Europe (ALDE) to set out why they should support his election in return for commitments to more reform of Parliament’s procedures.

Two of the European Parliament’s leading Eurosceptic MEPs will launch a campaign next week against confirming German centre-right deputy Hans-Gert Pöttering as Parliament’s president next January.